Its presence filled, then overwhelmed the viewfinder.
It loomed over me, demanding attention.
The camera captured no more than a lie.
I play with the image.
I find myself annotating the intangible.
A shadow spirit walks the street still.
It has broken its bounds.
Cost per click.
I clicked on the small tab at the top right of the ad.
I opened a menu.
I found:
"Why am I seeing this?"
I wasn't really seeing "this" at all.
I clicked out of curiosity.
I was met with:
I find "myself""interested in luxury goods".
"Manage your advert preferences"
"Take control over the adverts you see."
I am amused at the idea of "taking control."
I find a red heart, (my heart gushes) and words:
"Your interests"
My interests? I think not.
Grid after grid of "interests".
Audi France wants to reach men aged 35 to 55.
Fuck them.
Nowhere do I find mentioned: light, shadow, wind, rain, storms, dusk, clouds.
“In any case life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it
is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such
anguish, being shadows.”
―
Virginia Woolf,
Jacob's Room
"The skeletons in museums must be fake,"
he concluded.
I found it terribly hard to understand how anybody remotely curious could conclude that dinosaurs were part of a giant conspiracy theory.
This was a leap of faith too far for me.
Rex T.
I am coming to the conclusion that dinosaurs are far from extinct.
Recent political events suggest that they have been simply dormant or hiding.
Big beasts are ready to wreak havoc across the savanah.
Peace is over. “Man is the most vicious of all animals, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.” D. Tyrannosaurus Well, we are in for a hell of a battle.
I hear people who pride themselves on being "killers" (D. Tyronnosaurus)
Their go to emotion is rage.
They pray for prey to ravage.
“According to Barbara Res, who in the early 1980s served as vice president in charge of construction of Tyrannosaur Tower in Manhattan, the emotional core around which D. Tyrannosaur’s personality constellates is anger: “As far as the anger is concerned, that’s real for sure. He’s not faking it,” she told TheDaily Beast in February. “The fact that he gets mad, that’s his personality.” Indeed, anger may be the operative emotion behind Tyrannosaur’s high extroversion as well as his low agreeableness. Anger can fuel malice, but it can also motivate social dominance, stoking a desire to win the adoration of others.” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771/
We appear to be in a period of regression.
There are those who would be king...
"Celebrities and rich people “all come over” to Mar-a-Lago, Tyrannosaur’s exclusive Palm Beach estate. “They all eat, they all love me, they all kiss my ass. And then they all leave and say, ‘Isn’t he horrible.’ But I’m the king.”
There are those who dream of triumph.
We have fantasies of all conquering national power.
Can't we get over that affliction?
Apparently not.
"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." Albert Einstein
We have flag wavers all over the place.
Can't folks be satisfied with being just another human?
Apparently not.
What is the point of one guy winning if we all lose?
Dunno.
Conspiracy theories
Emotion trumps rational thought.
The elite are reptiles.
How the hell do we explain how people are so fucking stupid to believe this crap?
How on earth did my father manage to believe that dinosaurs didn't exist?
How can some people be prolife and simultaneously prodeath?
Dunno.
I fell upon a conference of George Lakoff in attempt to understand.
That helped a bit.
There are people with different codes of morality.
That helped me figure this out a bit.
“Morality of Reward and Punishment plays an enormous role in the conservative worldview. The reward side rules out any government distribution of wealth or benefits that is not based on free market competition, and it makes the right to the disposition of private property absolute; the punishment side focuses the criminal justice system on retribution.”
How do we stop these fucking dinosaurs from wrecking the planet?
How do we get beyond metaphors of "competition" for education? “Competition therefore is moral; it is a condition for the development and sustenance of the right kind of person. Correspondingly, constraints on competition are immoral; they inhibit the development and sustenance of the right kind of person. Even” ― George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think,
How do we stop people getting themselves killed for imagined 'countries'?
How is it that people haven't figured that these crack-pot dinosaurs depend on us for their existence?
Are we still at this level of evolution:
“Men are Moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.”
How is it that people haven't figured out yet that there is a limit to the planet's resources and that we need to learn how to live peacefully together?
“Everything begins with a strong military. Everything.” D. Tyrannosaurus.
"We're going to war with China, there's no doubt about that." S. Bannon.
For some people America was great in the fifites...
"Dr. Strangelove: I would not rule out the chance to preserve a nucleus of human specimens. It would be quite easy...heh, heh...at the bottom of ah...some of our deeper mineshafts. Radioactivity would never penetrate a mine some thousands of feet deep, and in a matter of weeks, sufficient improvements in drilling space could easily be provided. Muffley: How long would you have to stay down there? Dr. Strangelove: ...I would think that uh, possibly uh...one hundred years...It would not be difficult Mein Fuehrer! Nuclear reactors could, heh...I'm sorry, Mr. President. Nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely. Greenhouses could maintain plant life. Animals could be bred and slaughtered. A quick survey would have to be made of all the available mine sites in the country, but I would guess that dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided. Muffley: Well, I, I would hate to have to decide...who stays up and...who goes down. Dr. Strangelove: Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha. But ah, with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present Gross National Product within say, twenty years. Muffley: Wouldn't this nucleus of survivors be so grief-stricken and anguished that they'd, well, envy the dead and not want to go on living? Dr. Strangelove: When they go down into the mine, everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead! [involuntarily gives the Nazi salute and forces it down with his other hand]Ahhh! Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned? Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature. Russian Ambassador: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor."
Does distinction come from extinction?
Nope.
Sorry D. Tyrannosaurus Rex.
You think you are a big tough guy.
You're an irritating speck in a blink of history.
“Of the four billion life forms which have existed on this planet, three billion, nine hundred and sixty million are now extinct. We don't know why. Some by wanton extinction, some through natural catastrophe, some destroyed by meteorites and asteroids. In the light of these mass extinctions it really does seem unreasonable to suppose that Homo sapiens should be exempt. Our species will have been one of the shortest-lived of all, a mere blink, you may say, in the eye of time.” ― P.D. James, The Children of Men
The discovery of the city wall remains was not a surprise to the City Council as maps had pinpointed Peter Street as a location for the historic ruins.
You have to identify a street with a name, using a map or a road sign.
There have been no measures initiated nor a road map charted out, to rectify such fiscal imbalances and to restore balance for long term growth.
A river arcs across the grid.
It continues beyond the fold.
How will I gauage its flow?
I put my licked finger to the wind and wander North.
I could take on a crew and sail to Canada in my own boat instead of booking passage, or turn into a rover of the sea, going where I please and doing what I like.
But who is he, this invisible being that rules me, this unknowable being, this rover of a supernatural race?
Book
A written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers:a book of selectedpoems
I am, against my better judgement participating in conversation with people talking about... (who is this better and why is he/she speaking to me?) INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN.
"wuf, wuf, snarl...huh?"
I felt it wasn't for me.
I never read instruction manuals (until it is too late).
I once worked with people who called themselves 'Ingénieur Pédagogique'
(instructional designers).
I was impressed.
I am just a teacher.
I asked annoying questions about LMS's.
I obviously didn't understand.
Serious Business.
In France if you are the business you are an engineer of something.
I blame Napoleon bloody Bonaparte, that great liberal thinker.
I looked at the invitation to participate in #MOOCMOOC it included the words:
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN.
I had nightmares of Skinner and bloody CD roms. "It's a nice day today, isn't it? [REPEAT] It's a nice day today isn't it?"
Why is Manet's painting of Olympia not pornography?
What is the relationship between viral images like 'Je suis Charlie' and the 'traditional media' and the politicians and mass demonstrations in Paris?
I wasn't expecting to be co-framing such a debate with one of the students from Sport Science...over coffee.
Coffee tables, and comfortable chairs restructure relationships. I never know what I will learn.
That is the joy of what I do, it is never predictable, I have to jump from Drugs in Sport, to Perfect Pitch in musicians, to Sport Fishing, to mushroom hunting.
I feel energised by our dialogues.
Other students have much more difficulty to ask questions.
They seem to have little practise in asking questions, most of their time is taken up by content.
Changing symbols...playing with people.
We sat around the coffee table and a bunch of Playmobil.
We started playing with the little people, the dog, the cow, the house, the boat, the medical bag.
Manipulating the toys seemed to help them to disassemble the tortured sentences that they had been trying and failing to write.
Were we talking about all the people, the kids, the women, the doctor, the policeman?
Were we talking about all the world, a town, a village, a house, an organism? Do I have to speak dog?
Confronted by the request to define a research question, one student was freaking out and came up to me to ask:
"Est ce qu'il faut que la question soit poussée?" "Does the question have to be sophisticated?"
What he meant was: does the question have to use that language that the experts I don't understand in class use.
We sometimes forget that others don't understand us
We sometimes forget that others are not all as enthusiastic as us.
We sometimes forget that others don't have the same literacies as us. Being literate...being illiterate.
